As a method for winding a wire material on a reel, the following method is conventionally known: a wire material to be wound is guided to a reel body via a guide roller spaced radially from the reel body, and wound by rotating the reel while moving the reel or the guide roller in the reel axis direction to move (traverse) the winding position.
According to this method, the wire material can be wound on the reel by regular winding by repeating the operation of reciprocating the reel or the guide roller in the reel axis direction at a predetermined pitch every time the wire material is wound around the reel body by one round. In this method, however, since there is a distance between the reel body and the guide roller, a deviation arises between the movement of the winding position of the wire material on the reel body and the movement of the reel or the guide roller. For this reason, traverse adjustment at the reversal of the movement at both ends of the reel body, in particular, is not easy.
A method may be considered in which a large-diameter guide roller is used and placed to locate the roller outer edge near the reel body on the reel side, to make the movement of the winding position of the wire material on the reel body coincide with the movement of the reel or the guide roller. In this method, however, when the wire material to be wound is fine, the roller width must be small to ensure that the wire material can be wound up to the borders of the guide roller body with the flanges and that the wire material is prevented from swaying and causing deviation of the pitch. There is therefore the possibility of failing to maintain the strength of the guide roller sufficiently.
Also proposed is a method in which the guide roller is placed so as to be inclinable in the reel axis direction around a rotational axis, as the rotation center, located at the roller outer edge on the side apart from the outer circumference of the reel body. At the time of traverse reversal near the border of the reel body with the flange at either end, the movement of the reel in the axis direction is stopped, and, while the guide roller is angled and inclined so that the roller outer edge comes close to the flange border on the reel side, the reel is rotated to wind the wire material on the reel body at the flange border. At the midpoint position of the reel body, while the reel is moved continuously in the axial direction at a fixed speed, the guide roller is angled so as to wind the wire material on the reel by one round at a time (see Patent Document 1, for example). According to this method, the guide roller is inclined at both ends of the reel body to enable winding of the wire material up to the flange border. Therefore, the roller width can be large enough to maintain its necessary strength.
In the above method, however, not only at the time of traverse reversal, but also at the midpoint position of the reel body, it is necessary to move the rotational axis of the guide roller forward or backward with respect to the reel body in response to the inclination so that the guide roller is not apart from the reel, and this makes the control complicated. Also, with the inclination of the guide roller, the pitch of the traverse changes when the reel moves at a constant speed, for example. For this reason, in order to keep the pitch of the traverse constant, pitch adjustment is necessary for the reel or the guide roller every time the guide roller is angled. This control is complicated and costly.
To solve the above problem, the following method has been considered. As in the above method, the guide roller is placed so as to be inclinable in the reel axis direction around the rotational axis, as the rotation center, located at the roller outer edge on the side apart from the outer circumference of the reel body, and the roller outer edge is inclined to be close to the reel flange located ahead in the traverse direction on the side near the reel body. In this method, however, the inclining direction of the guide roller is switched to the opposite direction at the midpoint position of the reel body, and the guide roller is inclined at all times except for this switching time. With the guide roller inclined in this way, while the traverse is performed by the movement of the reel in the axis direction, for example, the reel is rotated to wind the wire material thereon. FIG. 4 shows a configuration of a main part of a traverse device used in this method.
In FIG. 4, the reference numeral 1 denotes a reel, 1a denotes a reel body, 1b denotes a reel flange, 2 denotes a guide roller, 2a denotes a guide groove on the outer circumference of the guide roller, 3 denotes a support arm that supports the guide roller, and 4 denotes a support block to which the support arm 3 is secured.
The guide roller 2 is placed at a position where the outer edge (roller outer edge) is near the reel body 1a on the side near the reel 1, and is rotatably supported via a bearing 6 by a roller shaft 5 secured to the support arm 3.
The support block 4 is placed on a movable mount (not shown) that is movable along a linear guide rail (not shown) formed on a base (not shown) in a direction orthogonal to the axis direction of the reel 1 using an air cylinder (not shown) for horizontal movement as the drive source, and is rotatable along an arc-shaped guide rail (not shown) around a rotation center C set at the outer edge of the guide roller 2 supported by the support arm 3 on the side apart from the outer circumference of the reel body 2a as the axis, using an air cylinder (not shown) for rotational movement as the drive source.
The support block 4 is movable and rotatable as described above. When the support block 4 rotates around the rotation center C, the guide roller 2 rotates around the rotation center C from its reference position (shown by the solid line in FIG. 4) vertical to the reel axis direction to either of inclined positions (shown by the dashed-two dotted line in FIG. 4) inclined by several degrees to both sides in the reel axis direction. Also, when the support block 4 moves, the guide roller 2 moves in the direction in which the roller outer edge comes close to or recedes from the reel body 1a on the side near the reel 1.
In the above device, the traverse (movement of the winding position) is performed by moving the reel 1 in the reel axis direction (up/down direction in FIG. 4) using an air cylinder (not shown) for reel movement as the drive source. During the traverse, when the guide roller 2 is located in the center in the reel axis direction, for example, that is the midpoint position of the reel body 1a, the inclining direction of the guide roller 2 is switched, to incline the guide roller 2 in a direction in which the outer edge of the guide roller 2 comes close to the reel flange 1b ahead in the traverse direction on the side near the reel body 1a. With the guide roller 2 kept inclined in this way, the reel 1 is rotated while being moved in the axial direction, to wind the wire material T on the reel body 1a. 
According to the method described above, where the traverse is performed with the guide roller being inclined at all times, it is unnecessary to move the guide roller forward or backward in response to the inclination of the guide roller. Also, since the inclining direction of the guide roller does not change during one round of traverse, control of pitch adjustment is comparatively easy.